Emporia limiting minute data to 3 day starting march 1st

[scrambler]

I just received an Email from Emporia saying they would start limiting the minute data availability to 3 days instead of 30 days starting March 1st.

I have to say this is Very bad news for me, and very disappointing!

If this is a financial issue, I would be ready to pay a reasonable yearly fee to have full access to the minute data.
Tigo energy, the maker of solar panel optimizer has a $20 yearly fee for premium data downloads, and I think it makes sense.

To Emporia, please consider offering a way for people to have minute data access!!

Thank you for listening

 

[Emporia Support]

@scrambler thank you for your feedback and idea on a annual subscription!  We certainly understand your concern.    As many customers are already aware Emporia is working on a Managed Services Plan, that will include among other things, a API which would provide access to all the data.   We are planning for the release of this early this summer.

I really like the idea of the plan you described as well that is a annual one for the data only.    Will definitely run that up to the development team.

Thanks you for your feedback and business!

Adam

[scrambler]

Glad to hear that, and if this is the case, marketing wise, you would be better off limiting the minute data when that plan is actually available.

People are more likely to subscribe when they feel the pain. By removing the ability now when there is no alternative, they will be forced to get use to doing without the data, and are less likely to subscribe when an alternative actually becomes available 🙂

If not, please consider restricting to 8 days until the subscription is available (instead of 3), so we can do a weekly download. Every two days is just not practical.

Again, if people cannot get the data in a practical way for a long time, they will have to get use to not using it and many will be less likely to subscribe…

My 2 cents

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by scrambler.

[waterboyz]

Scrambler

Right on…Right on…

I would be willing to pay $20 per year for all of my data.  But, I have two units in the same panel.  Would that be $40?  Hope not.

Adam:Emporia

I must have poor or slow memory because I don’t remember anything about Managed Service Plan.  I also did not know about the various data retention time frames.  Where was that shown during my app install and the setting up my CTs?

Dumping that email with the data retention changing was totally inconsiderate of Emporia’s customer base.  I strongly suggest that Emporia roll-back that email and rethink what they just did to their customers.  If Emporia continues with that email, it may cause future customers to not purchase because if it happened once it can happen again.  Or it may push existing Emporia loyal customers to design their own stuff and market it.

As Scrambler mentioned, about the 3-day rolling period, I’m wondering what planet was that decision-maker on?

My 3¢ (I’m old, I’m worth more)

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by waterboyz.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by waterboyz.

[Ric Werme]

My system is over a year old and after an initial flurry of activity (see http://wermenh.com/emporia/emporia.html ) I haven’t done much, I’m getting back to it briefly now, mainly to see what the last month’s data looks like and to play a bit more with the Smart Plugs I added last year.

One thing I’d love to be able to do is have my Linux system connect to the Vue directly and get essentially realtime data. Maybe all the time, maybe some of the time.

I could write my own dashboard and highlight things like forgetting to turn off the resistance heater in the bathroom or even the heated mattress pad.

While that could open up a lot of third party or open source software, I wouldn’t see it as competition, but as something that adds value to the Vue system.

[waterboyz]

Tic Werme said:  “…something that adds value to the Vue system”

I’m all for that.

[douellet]

That’s a shame. I expected an improvement of the interface and better ways to view and compare the data accumulated over time. With this drastic policy change, it seems you just throw all the valuable data down the drain and you won’t ever be able to improve the user experience.

My recommendation would be that you at least let the client-side application (or agent software on PC) synchronize all data to local storage on the cloud (Google Drive, One Drive or even on my PC harddrive), before it gets lost. And if the phone application can still read and show the local content, it would even be better.

[natbesh]

+1 to this.

I understand the cost of storing data etc, but having a small SD Card or local webserver on the unit is an easy thing to implement & store some data locally.

4Mb storage would store a HEAP of per second data & cost a few c

 

Local storage & access on the units please 🙂

[waterboyz]

Netbesh said:

Local storage & access on the units please

The adding of an SD card has been mentioned elsewhere here but there is no activity on it that I’m aware of.  I’d be willing to pay a pinch more for that feature.

[Emporia Support]

Hey everybody,

Sorry about the suddenness related to the decision to restrict Second-based reporting. As others in the thread have suggested, this decision was made directly because of the server costs/resources incurred because of storing this level of data.  I will point out from a personal point of view, after seeing the before/after affect of this change, it was absolutely necessary, even if for the short term. We are a small team, so it can be difficult to invent the “perfect” solution to problems as they arise, but we’re doing our best.

Regarding local storage of data (and exporting that to SD/webservers/etc…), this feature isn’t really on any roadmap to speak of as we are exclusively focused on the cloud solution for the time being. If people are in need for local energy monitoring solutions, we usually recommend the following links:

• https://openenergymonitor.org/
• https://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-home-energy-monitor-shield/
• https://unop.uk/raspberry-pi-electricity-monitor/

As far as API access and/or a premium plan goes, the plan is still for that functionality to be available this Summer. We will post updates as soon as more information becomes available.

Thanks,

Emporia Support Team

[scrambler]

@emporiainfo

Thank you for at least allowing 7 /8 days for the minute data, this is helping.

Have you decided to offer a data subscription so we could extend the minute data download to months or year?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by scrambler.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by scrambler.

[Emporia Support]

@scrambler,

Yes, a proposed data subscription/API access is in the works and planned for a summer release. That alone won’t change the cloud-based data retention policy, but it should provide the appropriate resolution for customers looking to store data on their own for more detailed views. I’ll be sure to raise the concerns related to the amount of data saved on our end and ensure that our team is aware of the communities request in this regard.

As soon as we have more information available (regarding an API and support plan) we’ll be sure to provide those details to the community.

Emporia Support Team

[Racer-X]

First thing this morning I wasn’t able to scroll through anything, then got a “we’re doing maintenance” message within the app. When the app came back, I can no longer scroll back through second, minute, and hour data. Is this part of the change to the data retention?

[scrambler]

I have no problem scrolling through sec, min, hr data on the app, so this is not the issue.

Try a shutdown and restart of the device the app is installed on

 

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by scrambler.

[Racer-X]

If the data is stored on Emporia’s servers, how would restarting the device change anything?

My Utility Connect shows and showed during the outage all green lights. I’d like to hear from someone at Emporia what’s going on with the server that *my* data is on. Yours could be an entirely different machine.

[scrambler]

May be the app is in a messed up stage.

Do you have an other device you can install the app on to see if you have the same issue there?

[Emporia Support]

Hi @racer-x,

We shouldn’t be experiencing any issues at the moment related to the retrieval of data (and definitely not related to any changes in data retention). Would be happy to discuss in further detail if you’re still having issues. Reach out to support at anytime (via phone, chat or email) and we can help troubleshoot.  Thanks!

Emporia Support Team

[Author]

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